Pulled pork weight loss

[grumpyoldman]

yesterday the wife wanted some pulled pork to make sandwiches so i go out a boston butt and smoked it
i always knew there is some weight loss due to cooking so i decided to find out how much
the boston butt weighed 6 lbs 13 oz after deboning , i smoked it 8 hours to get it tender enough to pull apart
while i was pulling it apart i removed any remaining fat grisle and the reweighed the meat that was left
it was 2 lbs 7.5 oz , i'll admit i didn't expect the weight loss to be that much ....just something to keep in mind the next time you decide to make pulled pork sandwiches

 

[karadekoolaid]

Wow! That´s a lot, isn´t it?

 

[Rocklobster]

Long smoking times really dehydrate the meat. More than I would have guessed..

 

[grumpyoldman]

i was expecting the final weight to be 3 1/4 lbs to 3 1/2 lbs or somewhere in that range , i never expected it to be so low, i only smoke boston butts 8-9 hours , some people smoke them 14-18 hours , just think what the weight loss would be then !!!

oh and just so you will know when buying boston butts , the large blade bone that comes in them weights roughly 12 oz
so that also has to be factored into the total weight when you are looking at it in the store , for example if you decide to buy a boston butt to make sandwiches , , you will need to subtract 12 oz for the bone and then subtract at least 60% of the weight for shrinkage to give you the actual cost per pound of the final product

 

[caseydog]

i was expecting the final weight to be 3 1/4 lbs to 3 1/2 lbs or somewhere in that range , i never expected it to be so low, i only smoke boston butts 8-9 hours , some people smoke them 14-18 hours , just think what the weight loss would be then !!!

oh and just so you will know when buying boston butts , the large blade bone that comes in them weights roughly 12 oz
so that also has to be factored into the total weight when you are looking at it in the store , for example if you decide to buy a boston butt to make sandwiches , , you will need to subtract 12 oz for the bone and then subtract at least 60% of the weight for shrinkage to give you the actual cost per pound of the final product

I leave the bone in. It is a natural doneness meter. When the blade bone pulls out with little to no effort, It's probably done. It is kinda' like the bend test on pork ribs -- a good visual indication that the meat is done.

That aside, I was rather surprised by that amount of weight loss.

CD

 

[JAS_OH1]

yesterday the wife wanted some pulled pork to make sandwiches so i go out a boston butt and smoked it
i always knew there is some weight loss due to cooking so i decided to find out how much
the boston butt weighed 6 lbs 13 oz after deboning , i smoked it 8 hours to get it tender enough to pull apart
while i was pulling it apart i removed any remaining fat grisle and the reweighed the meat that was left
it was 2 lbs 7.5 oz , i'll admit i didn't expect the weight loss to be that much ....just something to keep in mind the next time you decide to make pulled pork sandwiches

And here I was hoping you had a new diet where I could lose weight while eating pulled pork!!!!

 

[medtran49]

And here I was hoping you had a new diet where I could lose weight while eating pulled pork!!!!

Hey, skip the bread and light, if any, on the sauce, which is how I eat it most of the time anyway just because that is my preference. Add some corn on the cob and you have a great diet meal since as a 20 something year old young man once announced loudly so that the whole large room heard him at a buffet line that the reason he wasn't taking any corn was that it looks pretty much the same coming out as it looks going in!

Seriously though, Craig takes it to 205 F and the bone always just pulls out, but that does seem like a lot of weight loss. I do know that he is really picky about the butts he uses though and has a place he prefers to buy them from, i.e. not the grocery.

 

[GadgetGuy]

yesterday the wife wanted some pulled pork to make sandwiches so i go out a boston butt and smoked it
i always knew there is some weight loss due to cooking so i decided to find out how much
the boston butt weighed 6 lbs 13 oz after deboning , i smoked it 8 hours to get it tender enough to pull apart
while i was pulling it apart i removed any remaining fat grisle and the reweighed the meat that was left
it was 2 lbs 7.5 oz , i'll admit i didn't expect the weight loss to be that much ....just something to keep in mind the next time you decide to make pulled pork sandwiches

Do you have a pic of it?

 

[JAS_OH1]

I wonder if they inject it with a broth solution to add weight? That and they didn't trim it up at all and sold you a butt with an excessive amount of fat and gristle.

 

[grumpyoldman]

the reason it was deboned is because i was going to grind it up into sausage , it had been deboned and labeled with the date and weight, i buy all my meats from "Sams club "

 

[medtran49]

They definitely either pumped it up or did a really lousy job of trimming, or there was something on the scale besides the butt when it was weighed then.

 

[grumpyoldman]

i don't think so . i am the one that weighed it after I deboned it , i do this so i will have an accurate count as to how much meat i have on hand to make sausage with , my scale is very accurate , i weigh meat in lbs and oz down to 1/10 oz
my spices are measured in grams just to make sure my sausage is the same time after time with no variation
it should be noted that if used to make sausage there is very little weight loss, the loss comes from the extended smoking and the removal of all fat after smoking , i have found that after smoking,the sausage has a loss of 10% or less
if i cold smoke the sausage i can get the loss to near 0

 

[JAS_OH1]

it should be noted that if used to make sausage there is very little weight loss, the loss comes from the extended smoking and the removal of all fat after smoking , i have found that after smoking,the sausage has a loss of 10% or less
if i cold smoke the sausage i can get the loss to near 0

I get what you are saying. But you use casings in your sausage, correct? The casings will prevent fat and moisture loss, so it stands to reason that "naked" meat is going to lose some of both during the smoking process. Still, that's a pretty drastic difference in weight!

 

[grumpyoldman]

aaaah but you have to consider the casings are wet and factor in the added weight of the spices, and there is always a small amount of loss even with cold smoking ( tiny though it be )
with the pulled pork i was expecting a loss of maybe 25-35%
i was thinking that with the sausage i would have a fat content of about 25% total weight so i was bit suprised to find out it was higher than i thought
oh and i also make sausage with and without casings
in about 2 weeks i will be making a 100 lb run of smoked sausage ( with casings of course ), just waiting for spices to arrive

 

[JAS_OH1]

aaaah but you have to consider the casings are wet and factor in the added weight of the spices, and there is always a small amount of loss even with cold smoking ( tiny though it be )
with the pulled pork i was expecting a loss of maybe 25-35%
i was thinking that with the sausage i would have a fat content of about 25% total weight so i was bit suprised to find out it was higher than i thought
oh and i also make sausage with and without casings
in about 2 weeks i will be making a 100 lb run of smoked sausage ( with casings of course ), just waiting for spices to arrive

I do agree that it's a major difference in weight from before smoking until afterwards. But yeah, I figured that pork butt is a very fatty meat. I have never smoked one and my hubby and his group use different cuts for making sausage than that (not saying there is anything wrong with what you are doing there with the sausage making), but I have cooked pork butt in my crockpot before and it was swimming in a liquid pool of lard afterwards--looked like it lost nearly half of it's initial bulk with the melted fat. But you lost more than half, so that must have just been one fat lazy hog! Hopefully that won't be your experience again.

I bet it was tasty, though!